


I Am Everything Inside of You That You Wish You Could Be

by Helholden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, AFFC spoilers, ASOS Spoilers, Angst, F/M, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne had drawn her sword, Oathkeeper, as Jaime had drawn his, and together they fought side by side as if in a dream. Jaime had spoken to her later while under his fever, saying he had dreamt of that moment once. Before he had rescued her from Harrenhal, he dreamt of them fighting off their enemies. He had dreamt of Brienne, raising her sword and protecting him from his foes. When all others had abandoned him, she alone remained at his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Everything Inside of You That You Wish You Could Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is an angsty piece with some hopefulness to it as well. I got the idea at random today, and wrote it as soon as I could jot it down. It takes place immediately after events in ‘A Dance with Dragons’ with a possible run-in and escape from the Brotherhood Without Banners. Jaime is seriously wounded as Brienne tends to him, and they share some deeper truths with each other as he heals. I hope you all enjoy it, even if it is a little sad. It’s not too sad, I hope! ;)

_* * *_

 

Twilight descended around glow of their campfire as Brienne kept her eyes on the horizon. She sat with her back to the tree, its long branches stemming out above them, its leaves rustling in the wind. They were situated on the bank of a hill, giving them both protection from being seen as well as easy view of anyone coming their way. Despite her misgivings about setting the fire, Brienne had started one anyway. It grew too cold at nights to go without it, and she feared for Jaime’s health more than she feared for them to be seen.

 

Glancing over at his crumpled form beneath the blankets and furs, Brienne tried to remain strong for his sake. He had been badly wounded by the outlaws. They had only just managed to escape. It was a trap, and it had all been her fault. She had no other choice but to lure Jaime there if she wished to be spared her life, so she had shouted the word and they had cut her down. Brienne had sought out Jaime, and then he had followed her willingly into the ambush without ever once questioning her motives. It would be one of her deepest regrets for as long as she lived in this world.

 

Though Jaime had once been Kingslayer and Oathbreaker, he had gifted her with the sword Oathkeeper and he had kept all of his promises to her. She had found herself thinking of him often when she least expected it, and even now, she thought of him more than she thought of herself as she tried to save his life. They had survived the ambush. Brienne had drawn her sword, Oathkeeper, as Jaime had drawn his, and together they fought side by side as if in a dream. Jaime had spoken to her later while under his fever, saying he had dreamt of that moment once. Before he had rescued her from Harrenhal, he dreamt of them fighting off their enemies. He had dreamt of Brienne, raising her sword and protecting him from his foes. When all others had abandoned him, she alone remained at his side.

 

He had been sick for seven days now, his wounds festering. Brienne had treated them as best to her knowledge, boiling wine and pouring it over the gashes to kill any infections. She had taken needle and thread and sown shut the larger wounds he had suffered in the attack. After that, she had taken the time to gather herbs and created a simple homemade remedy of poultice and applied it to his wounds before wrapping them in bandages. They travelled by day with Jaime sitting upon the horse and Brienne leading the animal, and they slept by night, and at night, Brienne wrapped him thickly in blankets to try and help him burn the fever out. It was a trick she had been taught in her youth, but she was not even sure if it would work. Jaime had contracted a fever on the fifth day from the ambush, and it had not yet gone away. Each day, it only seemed to grow worse. He spoke in riddles and slurred sentences, and half of the time, he could barely open his eyes to see.

 

As the fire burned low to its embers, Brienne pushed herself up from the ground. Her armor clanked noisily, though she had refused to take it off. If they were ambushed again, she would not have time to put it back on to fight. With her sword still strapped to her side, Brienne knelt beside Jaime’s bundled and sickly form. He was fast asleep, it seemed, curled up on his side like a babe swaddled in his mother’s blankets. Jaime had spoken once amidst his fever, crying out, “Mother, mother, don’t go.”

 

Brienne had never heard the story of Jaime’s relationship with his mother, but she had known that the Lady Joanna passed away during childbirth. Brienne had never known her own mother, though she often wondered what the women had been like. Some part of her felt the loss, even though she never knew her, and she wondered how much worse it must have been for Jaime to remember the woman who had brought him into this world only to have had her ripped away from him before he was ready to lose her.

 

As Brienne knelt beside him and regarded his pale and gaunt features in the flickering firelight, she wondered what he was dreaming of now in this moment. His eyes were fast shut, and the stump of his arm where his hand used to be was close to his face. His other hand was right beside it. He lied upon the ground like a weakened child in need of protection, not a strong and an honorable member of the Kingsguard who had served the Seven Kingdoms since he was only five and ten. Upon his brow and cheekbones was a faint sheen of sweat, glistening in the dying colors of twilight. The fire also cast shadows upon his face, giving him a haunted and eerie quality to his once handsome features.

 

Brienne took a cloth, and she reached out for his forehead to wipe away the sweat. As she brought the cloth down to his cheeks, wiping below his eyes with a roughness that became her, Jaime stirred from his slumber. It had not been in her intentions to wake him, but Brienne was not soft of hand. She pulled her hand away when she realized she had awoken him.

 

“I am sorry, Ser Jaime,” Brienne told him, her words short and curt as always, but Jaime only blinked hazily at her as he tried to open his mouth.

 

“No, it’s quite all right,” Jaime said slowly, his voice hoarse and scratchy to her ears. He had not used it properly in days unless calling out in his sleep and begging for food and water counted.

 

“You need your rest,” she insisted. “Go back to sleep.”

 

Jaime made a noise in the back of his throat, but there was no expression on his face. His eyes were already closed again. She wondered, then, if he was laughing at her. “I cannot go back to sleep when you have already woken me,” he said.

 

Brienne frowned at him. “You must, Ser Jaime. You are ill and feverish. If you wish to get better—”

 

“I may die anyway,” Jaime murmured, turning his head back and forth as if shaking it at her. “Let me die awake rather than asleep. Grant me that, will you?”

 

Brienne was silent at his request. “You will not die,” she told him, yet even she questioned the conviction in her words.

 

“I may yet die if the gods see fit,” Jaime responded in his idle voice, and he rolled his head towards her as he reopened his eyes. “Tell me, Lady Brienne, of a story before I go.”

 

“You are not going anywhere—”

 

“Tell me, Lady Brienne, of a story,” Jaime insisted quietly. “Please,” he added, and his good hand reached out across the twigs and crunchy leaves of the ground in the darkness. Jaime found her hand, and gently, he linked his fingers with hers, folding them together. His hand was clammy and cold. “I should like to hear one this evening.”

 

Brienne gazed down at their hands. Her heart was racing inside of her chest. She searched her mind for a story, but found none. “I do not know any stories, Ser Jaime.”

 

“Tell me our story, then,” Jaime said, his voice softening and his eyes drifting shut again. “I should like to hear our story. Tell me it before I go.”

 

“You are _not_ —”

 

“My lady,” he begged softly, “tell me.”

 

Brienne felt herself choking on the words. It took her a moment to realize there were tears in her eyes, and she fought them back as she raised her chin high. Her hand clutched his back over the dirt and grass and the coverings of the earth, a twig scratching her thumb. The last flames of the fire had finally succumbed to nothing but glowing embers, highlighting the faded cobalt blue and deep violet of the skies surrounding them. Brienne had never seen a night so beautiful, so terrible, and so hard to get through until the morning could come and soak everything in a bright wash of clean white light.

 

She recalled their story from the beginning as she had led him out of captivity through the orders of Lady Catelyn Stark. She told him of their bickering, their fighting, and their insults as they traveled towards King’s Landing together. She spoke of their hardships, and she spoke of their triumphs. She spoke of their equal dream and equal nightmares, and then she found herself admitting harder truths. She wished she had not been born so ugly, she told him, and that he had not signed away his life to the Kingsguard, and maybe their lives could have been better. It was rambling at this point, jumbled thoughts and wishes pouring out of her that she had not known were within her, and Jaime’s hand had tightened upon hers as she said this. He opened his eyes once more.

 

“You are not ugly, my lady,” he murmured hoarsely. “Never, never believe that. Long after I am gone, promise me you will not believe that.”

 

Brienne’s lips tightened together into a thin line. It took everything in her to speak without her voice shaking, and yet it cracked on her all the same. “I have been learning, Ser Jaime,” she said to him, “that this life is not fair. It takes from us just as we are receiving from it.”

 

“If the world was a fair place, my lady, we would all have lived better lives,” Jaime answered her, his eyelids fluttering to a close. He had to push himself to open them again, but they wanted to shut on him. They weighed too heavy for him to keep them open for long. “Yet we are caught in its web of indifference,” Jaime added quietly, “but I have learned there is more than indifference. You have taught me there is more. Everything in you is beautiful, Lady Brienne. You are kind, good, and just. You believe in the best in people, even when you shouldn’t. You are honorable, and you are steadfast in your oaths. I wish I could be like you, my lady. I wanted to be like you, but it seems life will not give me the chance to show it what I am capable of beyond lies, deceit, and dishonor . . . ”

 

“I will save you, Ser Jaime,” Brienne whispered, firm in her convictions as her hand clutched onto his hand desperately. “I _will_ save you, so that you may show the world what you have shown me.”

 

Jaime almost seemed to smile at her as his eyes fluttered open yet again. “Do not make oaths you cannot keep, my lady,” he said to her, and his hand fell from hers. It reached up in the darkness, stretching out to touch her face. His calloused fingers brushed against her cheek as his thumb caught upon a stray tear. Brienne was not even aware that she had been crying, even if it was only a few silent tears. Jaime seemed to smile again as he looked up at her, and the gauntness of his sickly form transformed for a moment into his golden self from before, a glimpse of what he used to be with the goodness behind his eyes of now, and Brienne wondered how the gods could be so cruel to let her see such a image of the future and mock her with the possibility of ripping it away.

 

Slowly, his hand fell from her cheek. His eyes fluttered to a close, and stillness overcame Jaime’s body as he lied there. Panicked, Brienne reached out to check for the beating of his heart, and it was still there, though it was faint beneath the surface.

 

Jaime was still alive, though for how long, Brienne was not sure. Uncertainty overcame her, as well as numbness, and she sat back upon the ground. The dead leaves and twigs crunched beneath her weight, and Brienne wondered how long it would take for morning to arrive.

 

 _I will not fail you, Ser Jaime_ , she thought once more, as the darkness fell around them and swallowed them whole.

 

 


End file.
